The US is striking Iran again. Can it ever deliver a knockout blow?

By Jessie Yeung, Brad Lendon, CNN

(CNN) — In many ways it was already the ceasefire that never was. But with the United States and Iran claiming to have hit dozens of targets each with air, drone and missile strikes in the past 48 hours, it’s increasingly hard to see where this goes next.

The new strikes are the latest in a series of back-and-forth attacks since the two sides first agreed to a shaky ceasefire in April and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in June that was supposed to set the stage for a permanent end to the fighting.

Iran has claimed the US hasn’t lived up to its side of the deal; Washington has pushed back that it’s Tehran going back on its promises.

But US President Donald Trump is losing patience – especially this week, irked by the Iranian strikes while he met world leaders at the NATO summit in Turkey. The MoU with Iran is “over,” he declared on Wednesday, calling Iran’s leaders “cuckoo” and a “waste of time.”

Tehran has issued its own warnings – its parliament speaker and top negotiator posting on X: “If you strike, you’ll get hit.”

What we now have is the US military pounding multiple, mostly coastal, targets in Iran. Yet Iranian forces are still able to fire back, sending missiles and drones toward US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.

Things also remain precarious in the Strait of Hormuz – and experts say the latest attacks likely won’t remove Iran’s ability to threaten shipping in one of the world’s most important energy arteries.

Because the latest strikes from both sides are less intense than those launched when the war began in late February, some suggest a peace process still has a chance.

But others see little reason for optimism.

“The ceasefire had little chance of survival because the Iranian government that signed it has no authority over the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),” said Carl Schuster, the former director of the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.

The IRGC are Iran’s elite troops, fully separate from the regular forces. They control the country’s missile arsenal, and their job is to protect the country’s Islamic revolution. They report only to the supreme leader, and they’ve shown little interest in making a deal with Washington – at least on terms Trump would be happy with.

“Their overarching goal is to keep their theocratic regime in power. This air campaign won’t force them to change any of that. It’s too limited in scope,” said retired US Air Force Col. Cedric Leighton, a CNN military analyst.

And the IRGC wants to keep control over the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil passes in peaceful times – something they’ve done since the early days of the war, spiking world oil prices.

Trump wants the strait open and free, but analysts say Iran – through the IRGC – maintains a strong hand.

“The only viable ceasefire is one to which the IRGC agrees, and that will happen only if the IRGC leadership believes a ceasefire is the only option that ensures the organization’s survival as an independent entity,” Schuster said.

What’s happening on the ground?

The latest hostilities followed a now-familiar pattern: they were triggered by Iran firing on three commercial vessels on Tuesday, in Oman’s territorial waters near the Strait of Hormuz, according to a US official.

Iran sees control of the waterway as its most valuable point of leverage in negotiations, and says vessels must use its designated routes and have its permission to cross it. But a growing number of ships are using a route close to the Omani coast instead, threatening Iran’s leverage over the waterway.

In Iran’s eyes this violates the MoU, which included provisions for reopening the strait, easing financial pressures on Iran and setting expectations for addressing Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran has also continued firing on ships – prompting the US to retaliate each time, with the current round of fighting now the worst since the MoU was inked.

After the Tuesday ship attacks, the US launched a fresh wave of strikes, hitting 80 targets across Iran. At the same time, the US reimposed sanctions on Iranian oil, after initially agreeing to lift the sanctions for 60 days as part of the ceasefire agreement.

Iran responded with attacks on 85 US military targets in nearby Bahrain and Kuwait, the IRGC said on Wednesday morning. The attacks also coincide with the multi-day funeral for former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the joint US-Israel operation that kicked off the war.

Another wave of US strikes began Wednesday night into early Thursday, with explosions heard in different parts of Iran. The US said Thursday a further 90 targets were hit; meanwhile, both Bahrain and Kuwait have activated sirens warning of an incoming threat, signaling that Iran’s promised retaliation may have begun.

Where are they striking, and why?

So far, the vast majority of the US strikes have taken place on Iran’s southern coast, lining the Strait of Hormuz – with the aim of damaging Iran’s ability to control the critical waterway. A few targets further inland, including north of Tehran, have also been hit.

The targets include air defense systems, radar sites, anti-ship missile capabilities, and dozens of small boats “to degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking international commerce flowing through the international trade corridor,” according to US Central Command.

These attacks may have some impact on Iran’s capabilities near the strait – but that only goes so far, experts warn, comparing the recent strikes to those early in the war.

“If the large-scale … deployments couldn’t stop Iran threatening the Strait of Hormuz, then this lesser force option won’t either,” said Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and former Royal Australian Air Force officer.

“It’s simply physically displaying annoyance with Iranian negotiators. The strikes are effective – for example 60 small boats have been destroyed – but highly unlikely to influence Iranian thinking,” he said.

James Stavridis, a retired US Navy admiral who had sailed through the Strait of Hormuz many times, agreed. “You can degrade their ability significantly but you cannot, in this new era of drones, take away that ability,” he said.

Alex Plitsas, director of the Counter Terrorism Program at the Atlantic Council, said the reimposed sanctions could have greater influence than airstrikes, given how badly Iran’s economy is faring.

Trump under pressure

The future of the conflict remains unclear – for both sides.

In the past few months, Trump has repeatedly made threats against Tehran, including of the resumption of full-scale war, then backed off – but he’s visibly frustrated now. “Every time they hit us, we hit them 20,” Trump said Wednesday.

He’s under heavy pressure to end the war, which has wreaked havoc on the global economy and caused the world’s biggest-ever oil supply shock.

There are also domestic ramifications for his military actions, which have earned Trump sharp criticism and souring sentiment even among fellow Republicans and MAGA supporters.

That was made evident last month when the Senate adopted a resolution aimed at removing US forces from the hostilities, a clear rebuke to Trump – though it was walked back just a day later, with some Republican lawmakers changing their vote after speaking with Trump and his allies.

The shadow of the war will loom over the upcoming midterm elections in November – something Republicans have privately been worrying about for months amid growing voter discontent over the war.

Iran is also in a tight spot.

The huge crowds that attended Khamenei’s funeral procession this week, many calling for revenge against the US and Israel, is a palpable illustration of how the Islamic Republic’s regime remains firmly in place despite the battering it has taken from the world’s most powerful military. Many Iranian hardliners loathed the MoU in the first place.

But Tehran’s leaders also know their economy is reeling and they cannot outgun the United States. What they can do is use their key point of leverage – the Strait of Hormuz – to ramp up the pressure.

The question now is whether those tensions can be lowered – or will explode with a return to all-out war.

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